Pansexual girl and accidental activist

Tag Archives: slut-shaming

I have recently started spending an inordinate amount of time on Twitter. A year ago, I would have believed that to be a waste of time. A year ago, I was uninformed.

Twitter, largely thanks to the efforts of Black Lives Matter activists like Johnetta Elzie, DeRay Mckesson and Zellie Imani, has become the active, vibrant, effective hub of social change. It’s strange to say, but I sometimes feel like I didn’t really grow up, didn’t really mature in my own feminism, until I found Twitter. Sure, I sort of understood my own white privilege, but I didn’t really know even a third of the racial history of this country. I believed in intersectionality, but I had not quite internalized it.

Twitter changed that, 140 characters at a time. Not to mention all the links to mind-blowing, mind-expanding studies and articles, op-ed pieces and blog entries. It also introduced me to a host of amazing people who are doing some very difficult, often thankless, sometimes risky even to the point of possible death, activism work.

Aside from the cat pics and joke memes (which, let’s be clear, I enjoy more than I should), Twitter has mostly been a feeling of community I’ve missed for a long time. It has given me something I thought I’d lost, before: a place to talk about my personal feminism, without feeling like I was constantly under attack. A place to learn from other people, without feeling completely disconnected from the teachers. A place to debate, where the trolls can fairly easily be dismissed (at least, they can for me; I know others’ experiences haven’t been that at all) by the simple click of a mouse.

And there are the question tweets. Mostly, the questions aren’t original. Often, they’re things I’ve seen a million times, and just haven’t bothered to address or answer, for myself. Simple questions, with maybe not-so-simple answers.

Tonight’s simple question, from Feminist Gals an account created mostly (from what I can tell) to educate teens and college-aged adults about feminism, was this:

Why do you need feminism?

I responded twice, and I’ll include those answers, here. But there is so much more than I could put into tweets, even if I filled that text field over and over again, all night long. I decided to start a living, updated-as-necessary list of all the reasons why I need feminism.

I need feminism…

…because before I was old enough to legally buy a drink in a bar, I’d been molested for five years, gang raped while on a vacation, abused by two different partners, and roofied and raped at a party where I had one drink.

…because my family didn’t believe I’d been molested.

…because I chose a boy I didn’t really care about, to lose my virginity, so that the grown man who was molesting me wouldn’t take it from me, without my consent.

…because virginity has become so commodified in our culture, I actually believed I would lose value as a human being, as soon as I was no longer a virgin.

…because from the moment I had sex with that sweet boy, I was labelled a slut.

…because my best friend at the time was also gang raped, that night, and blamed me for it. Because she and her friend beat me in a parking lot for not saving her.

…because I was taught to question and doubt the validity of my own lived experiences, by people not believing my accounts of them.

…because of gaslighting.

…because, when I told my boyfriend (at the time) about being raped, he blamed me for it, and immediately explained how he would leave me, if I pulled away from him the next time he tried to kiss me or initiate sex.

…because I was still so unsure of my own value as a human being that I stayed with him, anyway.

…because my sexual orientation has been dissected, ridiculed, picked apart, and even been deemed imaginary or non-existent, since I was outed in high school.

…because not all of that came from straight people.

…because a high school guidance counselor told me that I shouldn’t be “shoving it (my sexual orientation) in everybody’s faces, when I spoke to her about the bullying.

…because I was quietly steered away from the hobbies and careers I wanted, when I was young, because of my gender.

…because my childhood religion taught me both that I was the source of all evil, and that my only legitimate purposes on this planet were to make babies and take care of them. And men. To take care of men.

…because my emotions, even when their expression is both logical and appropriate to the situation, are often used to discredit my words. I am neither hysterical nor oversensitive.

…because I had an easier time getting booze at the liquor store, when I was a teenager, than I did getting birth control.

…because I grew up believing that women weren’t supposed to enjoy sex.

…because all the heroes in my books, movies, and TV shows were men and boys, beyond Nancy Drew.

…because I was taught all about all the things I was supposed to do to keep myself from being raped, without ever hearing a thing about consent.

…because my male friends and cousins were never taught not to touch me, if I said no.

…because I was never taught how to set boundaries, or even that I was allowed to do so. In fact, I was made to accept kisses, hugs, cheek-pinches, and to sit in someone’s lap, even when I’d said I didn’t want to do so.

…because parents are still forcing their kids to accept touches and physical affection from people who make them uncomfortable.

…because, until I was in my late twenties, I believed that if I “led a man on” to a certain point, I owed him sex.

…because girls – and more importantly, boys – are still being taught that lie.

…because too many people believe they are entitled to my attention, time, respect, affection, body, and intimacy.

…because girls are still made to choose their clothes for school based upon whether or not the boys might find them “distracting.”

…because the vast majority of legislators making policy and funding decisions about women’s health in the US are male.

…because I’m afraid to post face or full-body pictures of myself online, due to the possible commentary.

…because my clothing does not indicate consent

…because my alcohol consumption doesn’t, either.

…because one in five women will be raped in her lifetime.

…because 1 in 5 girls and 1 in 20 boys are molested as children

…because our country provides those child victims with neither justice nor adequate treatment for their trauma.

…because a child victim of sexual abuse is almost twice as likely to be sexually assaulted or raped, later in life, as someone who was not molested as a child, yet there is no ongoing support system.

…because children almost never lie about sexual abuse, yet are rarely believed.

…because women almost never lie about rape, yet are rarely believed.

…because police officers often interrogate reporting rape victims as if they were the criminals…

…and only about 3% of rapists ever see the inside of a prison cell…

…and victims are revictimized by the court system, during trials…

…and by their communities…

…and by the media…

…yet too many people, when told by a woman that she was raped, refuse to believe her unless she goes to the police.

…because people like RooshV and Donald Trump exist.

And that’s all I’ve got the spoons to type, right now. I’ve barely scratched the surface, and I will be back.

I posted most of this as a comment on a post, elsewhere, in response to another comment. (What follows has been slightly edited, and expanded from the original.)

The comment basically said that men who rape are abnormal, and that what they do isn’t a learned behavior.

I beg to differ.

I would agree that no man who molests children is ‘normal.’ As to the men who rape women, well, I see that a bit differently. Some of the men who do these things aren’t normal. But not all, by far. Many of them are as normal, as statistically average in every way, as they can possibly be, and are simply the end products of societal conditioning that shows them, over and over and over, that they don’t have to be held accountable for their aggressive behaviors when it comes to relating to women, or transpeople, or anyone who isn’t a man.

See, we (society) have this picture of “RAPIST” that is the stranger lurking in the bushes, or behind a parked car, waiting to jump out and attack us, and drag us off into some dark, dank space to have their way with us. We (society) have this picture of “REAL RAPE” as something that is always a violent attack, with brutal, aggressive force, weapons, masked men, which takes place between strangers in dark alleys.

The statistics do not support that picture. The vast majority of rape is perpetuated by people known to the victims, trusted by the victims. It is more likely to be coercive, or the result of more subtle intimidation and power-play, than brute physical attack.

People say that the behavior hasn’t been taught to them. Actually, it has, in many, many cases. Sure. Someone, somewhere, told them “don’t rape.” Maybe. But the real messages coming from society aren’t so black and white. They are taught, over and over and over and over again that their aggressive sexual behavior is either perfectly okay, or not their fault or responsibility. That they can’t be expected to control their sexual impulses or desires, because … cavemen, or something?

If she was wearing a short skirt, or tight jeans, or a revealing top, or makeup, she obviously wanted to draw attention from men. So, if they catcall or approach her, if they get all up in her personal space, she must have wanted that, right? Because she wore those clothes that drew their attention, so that’s her responsibility.

If she went to a bar and sat down to have a drink alone, she obviously wanted their ham-handed come-ons and PUA bullshit. She obviously wants someone to pursue her, even if she says no. She couldn’t just be there to enjoy a drink, either alone or with her friends.

If she’s rejecting their advances, she doesn’t really mean it. She’s only saying no to be a tease, to make them pursue her, to play hard to get, to tantalize and inflame men’s desire for the chase. Because her behavior is all about them, doncha know.

If she’s passed out drunk, or so intoxicated that she slurs her words and stumbles when she walks, then it’s all on her if he has sex with her. She shouldn’t have had so much to drink.

See, ^these are the things we have really been teaching men. That “boys will be boys,” and aren’t responsible for their behavior. Look back, reallyLOOK, at all of those scenarios. In each case, someone is acting, and someone is being acted upon. Yet, in each case, society tells the person who is acting that it is the “personal responsibility” of the person being actedupon to play gatekeeper. To not wear the clothes or the makeup that ‘entice men.’ To not have a damned drink in a bar. To be blunt to the point of cruelty if they want their rejection taken seriously (which can then bring on even more aggressive, violent, threatening behavior).

But we absolve the person who is acting, in each scenario, of any accountability whatsoever.

So, yeah, in many cases, they ARE being taught that it’s okay to ignore boundaries. That it’s okay to push past them. That it’s okay to get in someone else’s personal space, even when the person is expressing distaste or unease or discomfort or outright rejection. They are being taught that it is not their responsibility to not rape. They are not being held accountable for acting, and they are being shown, repeatedly, that when they do act, the responsibility for their behavior is on the person at whom the behavior is directed.

Under the he-had-a-weapon-and-was-a-stranger-and-she-was-beaten-into-submission model, sure. Very few men do that.

But LOADS of men who don’t fit that “REAL RAPIST” false archetype are raping women. They rape their wives and girlfriends. They rape passed out girls and too-drunk-to-consent women at parties. They refuse to take no for an answer, and coerce and intimidate and bully and push and push and push until she gives in, not actually consenting, but unable to withstand the onslaught.

And we (society) overwhelmingly blame her. Even though he was the one pursuing, he was the one acting, we blame his victim. And he knows it. He may not think that he’s raping someone. He may think this is just how sex works. HE. IS. WRONG. And so is the society that teaches him that he isn’t.

No. We may not explicitly teach men to rape. We just teach them that, if they do, it’s perfectly understandable, and not their fault. Which amounts to the same damned thing.

Let me tell you about
the power
in a word
because the word
IS
a problem
just not the way
you mean it

The word
is a problem
because it does not travel
alone
or arrive
with courtesy
because it doesn’t always
give forewarning
before
it brings in all its baggage
before
it rips you back through
memory’s door
puts you in that flesh again
in that fear again
in that shame again
in that moment
when you
became a vessel
and nothing more

Back
to that moment
when some small
desperate piece
of your mind,
insistent,
whisperedBut II am moreI am more than this
to the next moment
when you shushed it
gagged it
strangled it
killed it off
in order to fucking survive
when they made you
a sin eater
to carry all the fucking guilt
and the shame
and the pain
of the wrong
for the rest of your days
because you know
he never will
and no matter
what pretty lies
you tell others
or tell yourself
that small dead part of you
which insisted
it was more
will haunt you with guilt
and shame
in the quiet of those infinite
sleepless nights
for always

Because once you know
that word
once you really
get acquainted with it
once it’s pushing
into your mind
every time
he
looks at you
across the baked chicken
and mashed potatoes
in the way he ought only
to look at your mother
as he sits
right beside her
and she pretends
not to see
and you know
that it could be coming
you know
that there is
not enough vigilance
in a whole fucking army
to keep him from being
the first
if he wants to
because he is patient
and will wait
for his optimal moment
like a hyena waiting
hunched over and drooling
in tall grass

So you make the decision
at fourteen
years
old
to keep that one small bit
to lay claim to
that one experience
to have that one piece
be yours
your choice
to steal away his chance
by giving what’s left
of your innocence
to the boy who looked
like Kurt Cobain
but cleaner
to the boy
you didn’t love
but who had a dimple
in his chin
and the name of a
famous funk singer
and the boy
treated you
with kindness
with gentleness
and awkward
fumbling sweetness
but all you could think
the whole time
wasHA!Hedoesn’t get to takethis part from metoo…

Not realizing that
is exactly what happened

Once that word is pushing
into you
on heavy
humid
waves
of burrito-scented breath
and the smell of Cool Water
against a cheap bed
with a broken spring
while you lie
still as you can
still as you can
addled by booze
and maybe a little
something extra in the solo cup
lie as still as you can
and wait
for it all to just
be over for them all
to have their turn
because when
you tried to run
naked
out the door
three of them
pulled you back in
and the sound
of the door closing
was the sound of
you
fifteen
giving up
pretending to like it
so they wouldn’t hurt
anymore

and later
your best friend
and her friend
beat you
in a convenience store
parking lot
for not protecting her
from the same fate
while it was happening
to you…

Once that fucking word is pushing
into you
on a dark gravel road
while your nose
bleeds into the dirty
bed of the pickup truck
tailgate biting into your hips
and you’re saying no
no
no
no
no
no
no
with every thrust
until the word no
loses all meaning
and becomes just a
strange heavy shape
on your tongue
rolling out
like a boulder
but landing like
air against stone
and the one
who was your friend
acts all magnanimous
when he finally
hears the litany
of negation
and pulls out
of your ass
and
without pausing
pushes into
your other hole
with a, There.Is that better?
and keeps on
plowing away as if
the continuing no
was just an
expected noise
that comes with each thrust
and you’re thinking
you’re thinking
the strangest things
like how
will you ever
get the blood
out of that skirt
before your grandmother
sees you
how will you ever
sneak your swollen face
and your shame
past her wakefulness
and why
is it so dark out here
and suddenly
there’s nothing
blissful oblivion
until you’re walking
dazed
bloody and alone
down a street
in the three a.m. dead
of a small southern town
and you stumble
the miles
to your car
in the dark
hoping against hope
that no one sees you
that no one knows…

Once that word is pushing
into you
in your home
in your bed
because he finally
got fed up
with all the no
no
no
and threatened
not to pay the power bill
while your baby girl slept
just down the hall
so you rolled over
and you stared at the
incidental faces
made by the
cheap
fake grain
of the cheap
fake paneling
you surrendered
with an insult
because it was all
the dignity
you could manage to preserve
to sayFineFineWhatever.but do it from behindbecause I’m watching TV

and you never
call it what it was
because you can’t
you never
call it what it was
because there’s too much
hanging on it
because the escape
and the education
the scholarship
the full ride
that disappeared
five weeks later
in a stream of piss
and two pink lines
became a child
a child
whom you love more than life
and you know
deep in your dark places
you know without a moment’s doubt
you have to hide that word
hide that truth
until you love that small
helpless thing
with the fierceness of a bear
protecting its cub
so you bury that word
you bury it deep
under years of denial
and decades of less than
and you love that boy
you love him
you love that boy
who looks
so very much
like his father…

Because once you know
that word
once you really
get acquainted with it
then you know
that the word
is legion
like that demon
containing multitudes
containing memories
memories you would rather
not possess
containing you
containing others like you
behind walls of
should have could have
why-didn’t-you
changing everything
irrevocable
making of you
nothing more than a vessel
no matter how much
that small voice
insists it isn’t so

Once you know
that word
you know the just world
is a shit-stained fantasy
and that the people who deserve
good things
sometimes get bad
while those who deserve
badness
take whatever the fuck they want
by whatever means they must
but as long as we
call it by
some other name
they don’t have to feel bad
they don’t have to carry
that shame
that guilt
that knowing

So

Yes

That word is a problem
but not in the way you think
and I will be damned
if I will sugar-coat it
with some euphemism
to make it easier
on the ones who want to say
that it wasn’t what it was
– if I was drinking
if I gave in
to keep the heat on
for my kid
if I went to that party
or wore that dress
or let him kiss me
or stayed with him after
or had his child –
I won’t call it something
other than what it was
to make it
more palatable
to those who want to claim
they did not know better
because they once believed
they were entitled
to my body
my agency
and my silence

Because why
should the power of the word
only ever be
felt
by those who-
like me-
really got
acquainted with it?

Why
is the word
only a problem
when it makes those who
don’t know that shame
who may not
back then
have known
but left us with the after
anyway
who don’t want to see
that the things they may have done
back before they knew
fit the definition
why is it only a problem
when they
feel uncomfortable
in their complacence
or complicity?

I will call it
by its goddamn NAME
until it’s a problem
that everyone
understands
that no one
denies

Until the ones who do it
are the ones who
carry the shame
instead of those of us
who carry it now.

Shame is an emotion with which we become familiar at a very young age. It’s used as a tool, in everything from parenting to education to employment to business to healthcare to social media.

A small child learns about a parent’s displeasure, and begins to associate the language, tone, and nonverbal language of disappointment or condemnation with (hopefully) maladaptive or dangerous or unhealthy behaviors.

School-age children are shamed for their antisocial or dangerous or disruptive behavior every day. Names are written on the board, or behavior cards are “turned” from green to yellow to red, as publicly visible indicators of whether or not the children have been well behaved.

Employers will often post notices, or send out memos, naming the people who, for instance, haven’t completed their work by a specified deadline.

Businesses post signs that draw attention to impolite customers who talk on their cell-phones while conducting transactions, and employees are told to ask offenders, in front of other customers, to step out of line until they’ve finished their conversations.

In each of these cases, shame serves a purpose, both to the individuals, and to the social groups in which the shaming takes place. Individuals learn about unacceptable behaviors, and that engaging in those behaviors can lead to scrutiny and discomfort. The social groups benefit when the individuals behave in the ways that are most beneficial to the group, as a whole.

Of course, that isn’t the only way shame is utilized. It is all too often treated as a weapon. Slut shaming implies that women who enjoy their own sexuality, on their own terms, are somehow dirty, immoral, and lewd. Body shaming plays on the insecurities of other people, with digs at their worth as humans, based on some physical characteristics.

And, of course, there’s victim shaming. This is a form of weaponized shame that targets people who have already been harmed by the behaviors of others, based on a nebulous and unconquerable list of dos and dont’s, shoulds and shouldn’ts, and personal strategies generalized to entire populations. It comes in so many different flavors, it puts Baskin-Robbins to… well… shame.

At its base, victim-shaming is placing the onus for feeling bad about what was done on the person who was acted on, rather than the person acting.

As they are the most common target (or, at least, the most commonly targeted victims I’ve seen), all of my examples will be focused on abuse, sexual assault, sexual harassment, or rape victims. Also, I will be using gender-specific pronouns. This does not mean that I believe that onlywomen are victims of rape, abuse, or victim shaming, or that only men are rapists or abusers, or that people who identify with something other than binary gender roles cannot be either, and is only used for the sake of (relative) brevity (HA!) and simplicity.

She wore something that exposed too much skin.

She was walking alone at night.

She was walking alone during the day.

She was in a bad neighborhood.

She was in a frat house.

She was in a dance club.

She was at a bar.

She didn’t practice the buddy system.

She had too much to drink.

She was in a relationship with an obviously bad person (because “good” people don’t do these things, and it’s really easy to tell the difference without long-term acquaintance).

She was too dependent on him.

She was too independent, which threatened his masculinity.

She was too meek, and let him walk all over her.

She was too outspoken, which was antagonizing to him.

She presented a front of a happy partner/spouse to everyone else.

She complained too much to everyone else about the relationship.

She smiled at him, which means she was giving off the wrong signals.

She didn’t smile at him, which means she was being rude.

She was too friendly with him.

She wasn’t friendly enough.

She rejected him.

She didn’t overtly, or explicitly, reject him.

She didn’t leave after the abuse started.

She tried to leave, and it made him angry.

She allowed herself to be alone with him.

She didn’t explicitly say “no.”

She didn’t say “no” loud enough.

She didn’t physically fight him off.

She didn’t physically fight hard enough.

She didn’t learn self defense, beforehand.

She antagonized him into escalating the violence, by fighting back.

She didn’t have pepper spray, a taser, or a gun in her handbag.

She shouldn’t have been carrying a weapon he could take away and use against her.

She didn’t report the abuse/rape to law enforcement.

She didn’t report the abuse/rape soon enough.

She didn’t get the precise timeline and/or every detail letter perfect, in the midst of processing the trauma, so…

She was exaggerating/lying when she reported to law enforcement.

She didn’t cry or seem visibly distressed when discussing the abuse/rape.

She was overly dramatic/overly emotional when she discussed the abuse/rape.

She got over it too fast.

She didn’t get over it fast enough.

She didn’t process it the way x person thought she should.

She refused to share details with uninvolved people.

She aired too much dirty laundry.

She won’t shut up about what happened.

She won’t talk about what happened.

She won’t shut up about the other people who are suffering the way she did.

She doesn’t do enough to protect other possible victims.

She’s focusing too much on the people who do bad things to others.

She won’t move on with her life.

She’s a “perpetual victim.”

Whew. That was depressing to type. And exhausting, both mentally and emotionally. What’s worse, that is by no means a comprehensive list of all the shaming tactics that victims of abuse, sexual assault, sexual harassment, or rape routinely face. Personally, I don’t know a single survivor who hasn’t faced at least a half dozen of them.

As a reminder, all of those are tactics used to shame the person who was ACTED ON, rather than the person who acted.

As a culture, we expend an awful lot of effort and energy on these types of things. Why? How do we, individually or as a culture/subculture, benefit from them?

We don’t. Go back through that list. As you read each of the things listed, as yourself three questions:

1) How does this other person doing this thing, in response to being victimized, impact the quality of my life?

2) How does this other person doing this thing, in response to being victimized, impact the safety of the social group/subculture I share with them?
3) Am I, or is that social group, harmed or made less safe in any way that is actually the fault of either the person who was victimized, their behavior before/during the assault/rape/abuse, or their response to it?

If we’re being honest with ourselves, the answer, across the board, is a resounding NO.

Yet we continue to shame them.

Now, ask yourself if your social group or subculture is harmed, or made less safe, by the rapist, the abuser, the harasser, or the perpetrator of sexual assault. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

So, instead of shaming the victims, why are we not shaming the people who acted on them? Why are we not shaming the behaviors that actually cause harm? Why are we so very hesitant to call out the harmful behaviors, and the bits and pieces of our culture which contribute to them? Why is there so very much pushback against that kind of shaming, and so very little against the rampant victim-shaming?

Of course, some of us are. Some of us are trying very hard to tilt the balance in that direction. And we face an awful lot of criticism and anger and shouting and pontificating and name-calling, and, yes, even shaming, for doing so.

Again… why?

I think it has to do, mostly, with fear.

Fear is not a rational emotion. It is instinctive, and often illogical, especially when we’re not discussing immediate physical threats to our own individual well-being.

I think, perhaps, that there are two types of fear that contribute to this shame-the-victim-but-never-the-perpetrator ethos.

One is the quite understandable fear of becoming victims, ourselves. It’s understandable, because it’s a very real threat. The problem isn’t that we’re afraid of being victimized, it’s the way we are responding to that fear. We’re responding by telling ourselves that there are things we can do, or avoid doing, that will render us invincible to becoming victims, or becoming victims again, in some cases. We want to believe that we have the ultimate power to keep other people from doing bad things to us, so we convince ourselves that this is true.

We convince ourselves that if we follow a list of dos and don’ts, if we are “resilient” enough, if we simply choose not to be victims, then we won’t be. We convince ourselves that we are, therefore, enlightened, and more protected, than those “perpetual victims” who don’t think like we do. We convince ourselves that some combination of behaviors and attitudes can work as an incantation to ward off the evils of the world.

Unfortunately, that isn’t true. Unfortunately, there is NOTHING we can do, individually, that will make us invincible to others who want, or do not know better than to cause us harm. No amount of resilience or confidence or preparation or prevention can change that.

The flip-side of that fear is the fear that we might, ourselves, whether intentionally or through ignorance, cause or have caused that kind of harm in others. That our behavior, somewhere along the line, may have crossed the line. That other people may see us as rapists, abusers, violators. That we might have to see ourselves that way. And this is terrifying, to most of us. The idea that we might “be that guy,” even though, perhaps, we never intended to be.

This fear leads to a knee-jerk defensiveness and denial which, while understandable, is entirely counterproductive, and even childish. It’s the train of thought that says, I once had sex with a woman who was incapacitated. Only bad people rape. I’m not a bad person, therefore having sex with incapacitated people isn’t rape.

Because it’s easier to deny that a thing is wrong, emotionally, than it is to admit we may have done a wrong thing.

Because there’s a false association going on, that only “bad people” can do “bad things,” and that line of thought just doesn’t line up with reality. We’re all human. We all make mistakes. We all learn some busted things, at some point. We all keep learning, I hope, throughout our lives. Sometimes, we learn that the things we once learned were wrong, or flawed in some way. The appropriate response to that is not to deny the wrongness of what we once understood, in order to alleviate ourselves from guilt or shame. It is to learn from it, and grow, and become better human beings. People who don’t do the things we now understand to not be okay, even if we didn’t understand it, before.

And a part of that shift is shifting the shame. Instead of shaming victims, or their behaviors, or even shaming people, we need to be shaming the behaviors that are causing harm. The dehumanization of women and transpeople and people of non-binary gender. The marginalization of those who are “different,” whether that difference is race, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, ability, economic status, or some other thing altogether. The levels of culturally accepted aggression towards those people. The idea that the onus for halting any interpersonal contact is on the person being acted on, instead of the personacting. Victim blaming, silencing, and shaming. Brushing abusive behavior under the rug. Excusing or enabling abuses to continue. All of those behaviors are shame-worthy.

Being victimized is not.

It is far past time for us – ALL of us – to shift the shame to where it belongs.

The label MRA does mean something. I won’t attack or insult, but only provide facts.

One of the oldest men’s rights organizations in existence, The National Coalition For Men (originally Free Men, Inc., founded in 1977 – OFF the internet), now has an online presence, like most organizations in the information age. As of the time of this post, the first article is, NCFM files complaint of sexism with National Public Radio (NPR). I read it. Then I did some research about sexism in NPR, and found this, a 2010 study conducted by the NPR, which reveals a strong sexist bias in the gender of on-air commentators, and people interviewed by NPR reporters. The strong sexist bias can be summed up in two quotes:

…we compiled a list of regular commentators, who are not NPR employees but are paid to appear on air. There are 12 outside commentators who appeared at least 20 times in the last 15 months. The only woman is former NPR staffer, Cokie Roberts (51 times), who is on ME most Mondays talking politics.

For this analysis, we examined 104 shows, using a ‘constructed week’* sampling technique from April 13, 2009 to Jan. 9, 2010. Those figures are equally discouraging. NPR listeners heard 2,502 male sources and 877 female sources on the shows we sampled. In other words, only 26 percent of the 3,379 voices were female, while 74 percent were male.

Take a look at the article. For you more visual learners out there, it contains some pretty revealing charts and graphs that make it very clear where the bias was – and was not.

To address this problem, NPR gave an employee who books interviews a temporary assignment. The question she is to ask herself, when finding people to interview, or to speak on air, is, “Who’s missing from our coverage of these topics as experts, analysts, commentator or sources of stories?”

Of the roughly 60 works of fiction discussed on NPR, only about 20 were written by women. Of the six novelists featured on more than one program, all but Amy Waldman, author of The Submission, were men. Of the three novelists interviewed on more than one program, all were men. Terry Gross interviewed twice as many male as female novelists, and Morning Edition apparently dedicated no coverage at all to women fiction writers.

I couldn’t find an issue-specific article that was any more recent, but changing a bias like that takes time. So, what the NCFM is saying in their complaint is that NPR now has a bias against men? Less than two years after the Phoenix article? I find that very difficult to believe.

Then there’s this, in which the author assures us that the patriarchy is necessary, in order to control men, and that any harm or control of women is strictly incidental.

Any controlling of female humans in a patriarchal society is incidental. The controlling of women’s sexuality, by having social mores limiting her from having sex outside marriage, is a necessity for controlling males, but it is not the purpose of patriarchy. It is a by-product of controlling the males.

O_O

Because men can’t help themselves. They can’t keep themselves from destroying things, raping, murdering, etc., and need faithful women at home, barefoot and pregnant, to give them a reason not to be monsters. And this is one of the many voices of the MRA movement.

And we have this little jewel, which, on the top of the front page, urges us to sign a petition declaring feminism a “hate movement.” A bit further down, he calls feminists, “terrorists.”

And every last one of those sites is NOT a pua site. They are specifically, vocally, self-labelled MRA sites, heavily populated and read and disseminated by men who self-identify as MRAs.

We can go on to the red pill movement, which, at its base, sounds not too terribly bad. They claim to be anti-pua, and claim that their goal is to get men to take responsibility for the effects of their own actions.

Except… there are all of these quotes, from the red pill reddit (skip this if you don’t want to feel ill, or be triggered by rampant misogyny and rape culture at work)

87GNX

But if you’re at all LTR oriented there is gold to be had in pairing off with a gal who’s a bit overweight, gaining control of the relationship, and pushing her to slim down. Ideally this nets you a fit chick without the ego complex that comes from having been a fit chick since junior high.

SkorchZang

Here’s a hoe, use it however you want and are able. That’s the RP way.

vandaalen

Women are like children. A woman of average mental health is not doing the things she’s doing because she is evil, but because it’s her nature and she is programmed to do so. She is an emotional thinker and therefore she hamsters. She hamsters and therefore she creates drama. And if nobody stops her and teaches her in the right time than she will end up on tumbler and propagate all the shit she propagates.

SkorchZang

Fuck good feminism. Fuck bad feminism. Fuck equality. TRP men are interested in the truth, and the truth is that there are no “good women” in the world, no equality, and no social justice.

wirevision

Now, many have already pointed out how TRP could have helped someone like Rodgers by teaching him ways to get the thing he desperately wanted, thereby preventing his rage.

RedPillDad

[Rodgers] had more in common with the feminist movement than it ever did with the manosphere.
That nails it. He was a pretty boy (and a narcissistic puke) struggling to be a man.
Girls can be raised as sheltered princesses and it can all work out for them. Raise a boy that way and you can get a broken piece of shit like this. You can give your son a storybook childhood where he’s always told “You’re special” every single day. I would rather be the father telling him “You’re a dumb-ass.”

Edit: This little puke was scary similar to my oldest son. My wife worshiped the ground he walked on and acted like his personal slave, until he eventually turned into a complete ass. Not that it was her fault, because I didn’t have a redpill clue back then.

da-way

If there is such a thing a rape culture then why are only 1/4 [sic] women raped in their lifetime and not 10/10 and multiple times. Also if half the shit feminists say about males were true, then shootings like this would be a daily occurrence.

knitro

The thing about entitlement is without it, nothing happens. Since guys makes the overwhelming majority of ‘first moves’ what you realize is that the guy has to assume the sale when going to the kiss or bang or whatever. As the recipient, it’s on the woman to clearly hit the brakes when it’s not what she wants.

greycloud24

i said it would be less bad, not that it would be good to kill a different group of people than the one he did. and i didn’t say fat women, i said people who spread fat acceptance. you see not many people want to touch a fat woman, and a lot of people don’t even want to be in their presence. when 6 out of 10 women are unfuckable, it drastically increases the value of the other 4. this guy was failing because for every 3 guys that want to get with a decent woman, there is only one decent woman. this is a result of fat acceptance. fat should not be accepted, people should be told that it is bad to be in the unfuckable group. instead they say that they should be accepted for being in that group, which is fine on an individual level, its not until we start looking at the bigger picture that it becomes a problem.
fat acceptance is what creates a significant amount of the ability of women to be hypergamous. but this is fueled by guys who don’t like fat women. you can ask men to change their standards and you can ask women to not be fatties in order to break this larger pattern. but this kid was at the point where he was going to kill people. my problem is that for one, nobody should ever be at this point. we as a society failed this kid by allowing conditions to be so bad that he preferred a murder/suicide to life. and we also failed him by not catching his problems earlier and helping him before he boiled over. this kid failed society as well, he was in control of his own life and didn’t find an adequate fix (like i said, his best option would have been to go to another country and get an arranged marriage, he failed to take that option).
so i am not saying it would be good if he killed fat acceptance people. what i am saying is that the problem he had is a result of fat acceptance people, and if he was going to lash out at society, he should at least lash out at the people that caused his problems.

yummybits

Well then you’re missing the whole point of TRP. Women do see us in the same way we see them. If you think all need is looks and think that looks will give you top pussy, then you’re mistaking. Just because we’re are (men) almost exclusively attracted to looks doesn’t mean that women are attracted to the exact same thing, thinking so is pure projection. Looks for them do not matter as much, this is actually why we have an advantage over them, as we can almost always improve ourselves in different ways and that’s where TRP comes in, while women can’t and it’s pretty much all genetics for them, like you said.
Again, I’m not denying that looks don’t matter at all and that you should become a land whale and don’t try to improve yourself physically, I’m just saying that they play a smaller part in men’s overall attractiveness, as oppose to women’s attractiveness where it’s almost all looks.

pleasedontknowme30

For example, I would rank myself 7.25. I could fuck a 5 in the ass with only taking her to mc donalds if I wanted. However, if another guy that was a 5 tried to pull that off he would be rejected. Girls rarely fuck “below them” I have gotten with girls above me in attractiveness however that was mainly because they were drawn to my personality or had a “thing” for Indian dudes.
Something else to consider is the bar for women is always rising. You could have an 8 that has been treated like shit by guys for years. Guys who don’t do shit for her. Just cause she is an 8 doesn’t mean she does nasty shit or is a freak. Maybe she has never been given many compliments, or had someone. Maybe one guy does something nice for her, out of the ordinary for her. She will be smitten with him. The next guy steps it up a touch, and holds her hand, or goes out of his way to make sure she is sexually satisfied. Each time that happens, she is going to let herself open up more for that individual because he set a new bar for her in men. So maybe she didn’t take it in the ass with assholes #1-5, but guy #6 who did a couple decent things for her and made her cum hard…well he gets into door #2. Just another way to think about it

trplurker 1 point an hour ago

Umm there are very real reasons. The older the women is the most men she’s fucked and the more often she’s swung branch’s. Eventually they get the “thousand cock stare” where they only view men as tools to please her. It’s a simple function of statistics, the longer she’s been sexually active the more opportunities for partners and thus the higher average partner count and the higher chance of “single mother syndrome” happening. Younger girls have lower expectations, lower maintenance and statistically less partners. They have an easier time bonding and aren’t as quick to cock hop as she hasn’t fully mastered the ability to hamster.
Women never mature past 19~23. Emotionally and mentally they will always be teenagers, always short sighted and wanting that next hit of drama and the hormones that come with it.
That is core TRP.

JP_Whoregan

Shit gets so much better after high school. Trust me. Finding this place at your age is giving you such an upper hand it’s ridiculous. The fact of the matter is, unless you’re on the football team, have rich parents, are ridiculously good looking, or just an all around stud, you’re gonna have a very hard time bagging high quality 18 year olds at your age, because all the HB8-9 women at your school are out banging 24 and 25 year old “douchebags” (like a lot of the guys here). It has everything to do with SMV; at 18-23, these women are peaking their SMV. As an 18 year old male, you’re nowhere near your peak SMV.
The good news is it only gets better for you as you get older (provided you take care of yourself, make money, and basically have your shit together), while these rejection-monkey cunts that are giving you a hard time will slam the wall hard and be pining for your dick once that bio-clock starts drying up her eggs.

The good news is, you’ll be doing the rejecting, because you will be the 25 year old guy banging 19 year olds.

You’re a senior? The girls you’ll be banging in the future are in your current freshman class.

yuanhua

What if our forefathers were onto something. If women are given as much freedom of thought as feminists want, they will naturally destroy their own value and expect men to pick up the shit. So men treated women like second class citizens for the good of the realm.

So, here you go. When you self-label as a men’s right’s activist, the things you’ve read above are the movement with which you’re aligning yourself.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I absolutely believe men should have equal rights. I think that, while men are in no way as systemically oppressed as women, there absolutely are some busted things that our culture does to men.

I think that we should stop socializing our children to believe in the men-as-hunters/women-as-gatekeepers paradigm of sexuality.

I believe that we should stop treating the rape of men as a laughing matter, or a non-entity. It is neither. Rape inarguably does happen to men, too, and it is just as heinous and horrible and worthy of discussion as it is when it happens to women.

I believe that the binary gender roles perpetuated by the current patriarchal system harm men, too.

And I want all of those things to change.

But I cannot see a self-identified MRA, without seeing what the movement stands for, publicly, unapologetically, and every single day. The label has been indelibly corrupted, and feminists didn’t do that. Men, self-identifying as MRAs, did. Don’t hate on us because of something they did to a label that could have been worthwhile.

No. Not all men oppress women.

Yes. I will still react with disdain when faced with MRAs, or their rhetoric. Change the movement, or change the label, but stop with the chest pounding towards us,about the way other men have corrupted the identifier.

update 6/26: Perhaps I am behind the learning curve, a bit. I’ve only just discovered donotlink, and don’t wish to give the misogynists any more web traffic than they already receive, even from those who would fight against their bullshit. So, all links to MRA sites have been edited with that in mind. You can still see the material, without giving them added power on search engines.

Update 1/16/18 – donotlink.com is permanently down. I’ve restored those links from there to which I maintained access, or which did not disappear in the meantime.